The alien-like whistles heard since last week are emanating from the unfinished, unsheathed acoustic roof of the Ocean Breeze Track and Fieldhouse on Capodanno Boulevard.Staten Island Advance/Virginia N. Sherry

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- If noise is defined as unwanted sound, Ocean Breeze residents are enduring plenty of it these days as eerie “music” reverberates off the unsheathed, acoustic metal roof deck of the 135,000-square-foot indoor track and field facility under construction on Capodanno Boulevard near Seaview Avenue.

The unwelcome, nerve-wracking cacophony — which some residents liken to the soundtrack of a science-fiction movie — is intermittent, heard day and night, often for long periods and at alternating pitches, they say.

The noise appears to start and stop based on the direction and intensity of prevailing winds.

“I’m so frazzled — we’re all tormented!” exclaimed Eileen Pepel of Sioux Street, a neighborhood resident for 28 years.

Dots on map indicate locations where eerie noise has been audible.Staten Island Advance

She first heard the weird sounds about two weeks ago, she said on Tuesday.

“At first, I didn’t pay attention, but the sound didn’t go away. I was not sure what it was — aliens landing on our roofs?”

“It’s very distracting,” said Steve Elias, an Oceanside Avenue resident who is president of the Ocean Breeze-Graham Beach Civic Association. “It sounds like 100,000 people with unlimited air in their lungs blowing through Coke bottles,” he said on Tuesday. “It’s almost alien-like.” 

Dongan Hills resident Steve Pappas first heard the noise when he was out for one of his regular walks on the Ocean Breeze Fishing Pier last Friday afternoon. The noise was so strange that he telephoned the Advance with a first-hand report.

“It was very unusual and annoying, and went on for hours,” he said. “The pitch changed, and then it stopped, and then it started again. It was really bugging me. Some people said it was driving their dogs crazy.”

Mrs. Pepel, the Sioux Street resident, reported constant, loud noise from the site on late Tuesday morning. “It’s been howling,” she said. “It’s like Chinese water torture.

“My barking dogs are driving me out of my mind,” she added, referring to her two Portuguese water dogs -- Cutter, a 12-year-old male, and Nixie, her 1-year-old female.

One resident of Ocean Breeze, who declined to provide his name but said that he has lived in the neighborhood for 50 years, heard the sounds, “at two different pitches,” for at least three days in a row last week.

“The first time I heard it, I had no idea what it was,” he said on Monday. “It stopped and started, and everyone was wondering what was going on.

“Last Friday afternoon it was really loud, and I had to close my windows,” he said. “The pitch got higher when the wind picked up.” The eerie sounds did not stop until about 7:30 p.m., he said, “when the wind died down.”

He telephoned the Advance again on early Tuesday morning. “Listen — this is what we’re dealing with, since two o’clock in the morning, off and on,” he said in a message. “Can you hear the high pitches?” he added, audible in the background.

Yasmin Ammirato, president of the Midland Beach Civic Association, was inside her Olympia Boulevard home on early Tuesday morning when she heard “a weird, intermittent noise,” starting at approximately 6:45 a.m.

“It was a strange noise, but I didn’t pay it much mind,” although neighborhood dogs were barking more than usual, she said.

One of the managers at South Fin Grill, on the Boardwalk near Sand Lane in South Beach, told the Advance on Tuesday that he heard the weird sounds earlier in the morning, for the first time. 

One person in the know on the construction site told the Advance on Monday that the sounds were an “unintended consequence,” explaining that the acoustic metal roof deck was erected before the structure was enclosed. This source also noted that on-site workers are now equipped with earplugs.

Asked for comment, the city’s Department of Design and Construction, construction manager for the $70 million project, acknowledged the bizarre noise-pollution problem, but could not promise relief to frustrated neighborhood residents any time soon.

“We will be working extra hours to get the roof fully enclosed, which should eliminate any wind noise emanating from the structure,” an agency spokesman wrote in an email message on Tuesday.